"For years I've tried my damnedest to get away from C. Too simple, too many details to manage, too old and crufty, too low level. I've had intense and torrid love affairs with Java, C++, and Erlang. I've built things I'm proud of with all of them, and yet each has broken my heart. They've made promises they couldn't keep, created cultures that focus on the wrong things, and made devastating tradeoffs that eventually make you suffer painfully. And I keep crawling back to C."

Even though it didn't appear so initially I think we agree more than we disagree. Perhaps with different emphasis, but:

"Your link is only considering execution time

That is how you measure language performance. Memory usage and code size are other metrics. "

I disagree with you here. Performance is multidimensional and those three factors are the primary factors.

Look at something like car performance, it is a combination attributes like maximum speed, acceleration, breaking, handling etc. Again, multidimensional.

Also, you are correct, the Go tip/1.1 garbage collector is much better.

"Again, I mean modern C as in C the general purpose language of the 1970/80s, not C is the systems programing language of today.

Well if you had framed it as such then I would have had no problem with your claim, although I would still find it odd to compare Go with C's much more widespread usage in the 70/80's as opposed to the areas it mainly occupies today. "

"We did not want to be writing in C++ forever" -Rob Pike
This goes back to the Bell labs guys feeling that C++ took C in the wrong direction. Go is Ken, Rob and Robert's attempt at C like language that they feel improves on C as a general purpose language, going a different direction than C++ took (a path mostly followed by Java/C++).

Even though it didn't appear so initially I think we agree more than we disagree.

I think so too, like I said, I like Go

I disagree with you here. Performance is multidimensional and those three factors are the primary factors.

Sure, but if you omit the words memory usage or code size and simply say 'language performance' it will most likely be the generated code performance that is being referring to as that is the most common metric being compared, particularly in benchmarks.

Also, you are correct, the Go tip/1.1 garbage collector is much better.

Great, haven't built tip since before 1.03 so I'm in for a nice surprise by the sound of it. Go 1.1 still slated for Q1 I hope?

"We did not want to be writing in C++ forever" -Rob Pike

Well, like I said I think Go has a good chance at taking on C++/Java/C# in the application space, both on the end user desktop and enterprise.

From my as of yet meager time with the language I think that the built-in concurrency primitives (goroutines and channels) are likely the best features when it comes to 'selling' the language.

Again given how 'more cores!' seem to be the cpu manufacturers battlecry these days, a language like Go which makes it easier to make use of an increasing number of cores without exposing the programmer to increasing complexity has a very bright future in my opinon.

In the meantime you can always grab a snapshot of Go tip. A couple of the go core devs I talked to feel that for performance intensive uses this is the way to go. You can use the google issue tracker to make sure you don't care about any issues in a particular snapshot (many are feature enchantments, etc)